Preferred method of starting a new drawing

Sounds like contradictory statements and blaming AutoCAD rather than the "software" operating AutoCAD.

Really? Do really I need to explain this?

Sometimes even a reputable company will put out bad CAD. It may not affect the overall quality of their product, the design plans. There is no guarantee on the quality of the CADding. After all, that is not what they are getting paid for.

One word for all of y'all: REVIT.

Rob knows.

In another forum today there was a brief discussion about how it was thought that Revit would cure some bad habits. It now seems that it doesn't, Revit just gives them more ways to mess things up.

In another forum today there was a brief discussion about how it was thought that Revit would cure some bad habits. It now seems that it doesn't, Revit just gives them more ways to mess things up.

1st, "cure" should never be used. That's impossible and is not a realistic expectation. So it shouldn't even be a discussion... the real discussion is that you can manage things a lot easier with Revit when it comes to standards. Columns? Lets see anybody try and use a Mechanical Equipment family as a column. Electrical Panel equipment? Try and use a generic model family and connect electrical circuits. Text or Dimension Styles? Try an singular manual override - oh wait you can't. This is the stance I was referring to on the topic.

2nd, Revit doesn't give people more ways to mess things up, as long as they're using Revit in the way it was meant to be used. In fact, I see ways on messing up as the exact opposite in a lot of cases, but it's imperative that you're using Revit as much to the manner it was intended as humanly possible, and within reason for time and budget constraints. I had a good story today actually. Last week I constrained some 2D Bolt Detail Components 2" off an edge of a structural connection plate because I knew it was going to change. The 16" sq. connection plate was a guess. Sure enough it needed to be 12" sq. Edited the Family and the detail updated right along with it. The Bolts shifted in the Live Section on the plan. Small example yes, but this can really be useful in all facets of the design model.

I guess it just depends on which "bad habits" people are referring to. Using the associative Section and Detail Callout heads does in fact cure bad habits. Don't have to worry about that anymore. But there are always those little things that are impossible to cure, obviously.

PS: Which forum? Swamp, or RFO? Just curious was all.

Good post about Revit and I agree. But to get back on topic a bit my main reason for this is that I am trying to do my drawings without all the stuff that comes with them because all of my drawings come from somebody else, I don't have much of a choice. I do have custom templates that I made and work well when I do a drawing from scratch. But when I insert an xref or a block of a floor plan I get all the crap that somebody else has put in there. However I did notice that when I convert my layouts to pdf only the layers with objects get converted, everything else is ignored. I don't know how Adobe does this or if it's AutoCAD excluding those layers, but if those layers can be exclude because their empty then why can't AutoCAD delete them. I thought that if someone had a way of starting a new drawing without all these extra layers and blocks they might post it here.

Revit discussion continued over here:

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?81640-Does-Revit-Cure-Bad-CAD&p=555311#post555311

It used to be a main part of my job to clean up files for use as backgrounds. The procedure differed depending on the source but a fair amount of time was put into exploring the drawings and learning to recognize the carp. I took pride in how I could track down something that would cause problems with the files that they were being XREF'd into. One thing that used to be a major issue was having the defpoints layer in an XREF file. For some reason our system did not like it and if you have ever tried to purge that layer, it's not always easy to do. The newer AutoCADs are much more tolerable of things like that.

Some tips for cleaning up files:

Purge, audit, setbylayer, flatten, WBlock or copy and paste, aecobjexplode, laydel.

This has been discussed many times and there are many more tips posted here.

It used to be a main part of my job to clean up files for use as backgrounds. The procedure differed depending on the source but a fair amount of time was put into exploring the drawings and learning to recognize the carp. I took pride in how I could track down something that would cause problems with the files that they were being XREF'd into. One thing that used to be a major issue was having the defpoints layer in an XREF file. For some reason our system did not like it and if you have ever tried to purge that layer, it's not always easy to do. The newer AutoCADs are much more tolerable of things like that.

 

Some tips for cleaning up files:

 

Purge, audit, setbylayer, flatten, WBlock or copy and paste, aecobjexplode, laydel.

 

This has been discussed many times and there are many more tips posted here.

- Tannar

We start with a 100% clean slate (no text styles dimension styles etc in our templates, just the units).

Using architectural backgrounds we remove all information irrelevant to us and X-Ref them into our template.

All layers, text styles are inserted through scripts (we have some architects/some of their clients who request certain text styles etc on the plans).

I have set up a button in our pallettes that imports our title block (when we get to use it) into a new layout tab (all you need to do is create a view port).

Depending on who the architect is I have lay filters set up for our differnt plans depending on the layout tab.

With our work it is very difficult to standardize everything as the different architect we have are all over the page, and some have some very strict guidelines we must follow. I actually got yelled at on the phone for using an '&' rather than 'AND' when labeling our drawings.

Start with an existing drawing, blow away what I don't need then add what I do need.

Often done this on many times including today:lol:

We start with a 100% clean slate (no text styles dimension styles etc in our templates, just the units).

 

Using architectural backgrounds we remove all information irrelevant to us and X-Ref them into our template.

 

All layers, text styles are inserted through scripts (we have some architects/some of their clients who request certain text styles etc on the plans).

 

I have set up a button in our pallettes that imports our title block (when we get to use it) into a new layout tab (all you need to do is create a view port).

 

Depending on who the architect is I have lay filters set up for our differnt plans depending on the layout tab.

 

With our work it is very difficult to standardize everything as the different architect we have are all over the page, and some have some very strict guidelines we must follow. I actually got yelled at on the phone for using an '&' rather than 'AND' when labeling our drawings.

Good stuff, Mike. That thing with the '&' symbol cracked me up. My default is to spell it out unless I need to save space. Those architects have a way of picking up something like that but miss stuff like putting a ceiling too close to the slab above to put in the recessed light fixtures they want.

Good stuff, Mike. That thing with the '&' symbol cracked me up. My default is to spell it out unless I need to save space. Those architects have a way of picking up something like that but miss stuff like putting a ceiling too close to the slab above to put in the recessed light fixtures they want.

I totally agree, or forgetting to draw in bulk heads ( we ran into that on a job). We had to issue the entire reflected ceiling plan as a huge addendum.